I just dusted off the Police, Synchronicity, something I had not listened to in at least a dozen years, and I had forgotten how good the album is and I remembered every lyric.
Aside from the fact that the album is great, it really took me back to another time (high school, actually, as it came out 83). I find the way that scents and sounds can trigger memories to be really interesting, and if you have anything interesting on the subject matter, put it in the comments so I can check it out.
BTW- Previously mentioned box wine = goodness.
*** Update ***
The wine might be too good. I am having a deep hankering for an Arturo Fuente or a Padron. If I open the Laphroiag, all bets are off.
*** Update #2 ***
The wine is so good I am now dipping deep into the heavy shit, like the Cars, a band I have always secretly loved. The lights are on, moving in stereo.
Bwahaha. Drubnk enough to not only make up words to songs when I sing, but when I type. I RULE! Someone set us up the bomb!
John S.
Oh man, what a great album. That was the first CD I ever bought with my own money.
My favorite track is by far Wrapped Around Your Finger. I’m a sucker for mythological references, but combining that with overt Tolkien references just ratchets things up on the fantasy geek-o-meter.
My favorite line:
There’s a lesson in there somewhere.
Harley
The Cars? Soon to reunite. Without Ocasek (thinks he has solo career) and Orr (deceased). Not sure how that’s going to work out. And not all that happy to see an old favorite, Todd Rundgren, at the helm of it. Oh well.
John Cole
Todd Rundgren called me an asshole once. Really.
I worked for a company called SMAVSCO (Sany margolis Audio Visual Sound Company) and we were running the sound for a 4th of July special in Woodstock NY. I set up the stacks with the creew and was running the sound for their concerts, and when it got dark, they had this inspirational/patriotic music they wanted to play during the fireworks. We were playing it, and Rundgren, who lived there, came up and bitched that he couldn;t hear the sonic booms because of the music, and I told him there was nothing I could do about it.
He called me an asshole and left.
kenB
I seem to be about the same age as Mr. C. My high school friends and I mined that album quite extensively for parody material. “Giving You the Finger” was a personal favorite, although “Queen of Pain” (about our 12th-grade English teacher) was also fun — we had in-class “pressure writing” assignments every Wednesday, graded on a scale of 1-9 (9 being best), so naturally the song opened with “There’s a little black 2 on my comp today (that’s my grade up there); it’s the same old grade as last Wednesday…”
Dexter
Why does Todd Rundgren hate America?
Gold Star for Robot Boy
Phoebe Cates gets out of the pool in three… two… one…
paul
I find the way that scents and sounds can trigger memories to be really interesting
Though the book is enormous and difficult, in the first fifty pages of the first volume of Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, Swann’s Way, you find a very realistic and accurate description of (a) what it’s like to wake up in a room and not know where you are, and (b) to have one’s memory triggered by sensory input.(In his case, I believe it’s a cracker he has with his tea).
Later in the volume he takes on music…. It’s almost certain to amaze.
demimondian
I’ve been writing a lot of prototype code recently — PMs don’t write shipping code — so I’ve been drilling deeper and deeper into my “rocking out” CD stash. Classical is great for writing specifications, I find — but code needs something heavy and abusive. I’ve been listening to a lot of Cyndi Lauper, Blondie, Talking Heads, and Elvis Costello.
demimondian
There’s a huge literature about olfaction and immediacy. Cole’s sense that smells are particularly evocative of past events seems to be borne out in the data — for some reason, and it isn’t known exactly why, olfactory percepts have a much stronger emotional component than other modalities, such as audition or vision. The smell of an old girlfriend’s perfume can bring back sweeping memories in ways that a photograph can’t.
aop
Why must your love for the Cars be secret? They’re a fucking awesome band. Nothing to be ashamed of there.
Also, funny about Todd Rundgren. I love his music, though. “Something/Anything” is definitely top 20 all time for me…
Paddy O'Shea
I guess it all depends what the music meant to you at an important point in your life. I recently got a double “Italian Import” T-Rex CD from a shady mailorder company, and I’ve been playing the shit out of it these past few days. My first real girlfriend in high school insisted on fucking to T-Rex every chance we got. What I could have done with a 45 minute version of “Cosmic Dancer” back then.
Interesting article for those reveling in the impending destruction of the vastly corrupt GOP:
Dept Of justice GOP Corruption Probe Could Be Huge Says NY Times
“I think this has the potential to be the biggest scandal in Congress in over a decade,” said Thomas E. Mann, a Congressional specialist at the Brookings Institution.
http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002054.htm#comments
Kimmitt
Synchronicity really is a great album.
kl
Because it has thoroughly rejected his music.
Ned Raggett
Synchronicity was middle school for me. Still know every note. One of the funniest things the MST3K crew ever did in a career full of them was a swing choir parody sketch where halfway through one medley Dr. Forrester and Frank broke into a goony, goofy dance to the “Walking In Your Footsteps” chorus, singing it as if it was a nursery rhyme with silly piano backing. Genius.
Slartibartfast
Um: Life’s the same, I’m moving in stereo.
Love that song. And the fact that it brings on a Phoebe Cates moment (probably her best cinematic moment, too, although that’s not saying much) is a bonus.
I like Todd Rundgren’s stuff. His guitar work on Caravan was impressive, and Rundgren would tell you he’s no guitar player.
My favorite song on Synchronicity is…wait for it…Mother. That album came out when my parents were getting divorced, and my mother was briefly possessed by demons, which made conversations with her rather toxic. So, this was a running joke with me and my sibs.
My favorite Police album of that era was Ghost in the Machine. Truly legendary drumming by Copeland, there.
rilkefan
Trying to remember the Cars video featuring a dancer wearing something surprisingly translucent for MTV.
rilkefan
Slart, I thought about commenting “Mother!!!!” above, but tags don’t do justice.
Steve S
Wow, my only brush with fame was the time Cheap Trick came into the Hardees we were at.
Hardees = Carls Jr for you coastal guys
slickdpdx
Now, when Ms. Gredenko comes over you must switch to vodka.
CS
Laphroaig!!!1!1! Best drink in the ‘verse but always makes me blather about religion for some reason…
Now I have to have one…the sinuses need the help anyways.
Did you ever send in the card for your free slice of the peat? I did but still haven’t made it to Islay yet to see my miniscule Scottish estate.
james richardson
Am I the only person in America who likes Spiritualized?
Kevin K.
Am I the only person in America who likes Spiritualized?
Yes.
Actually, I’m joking. I would much rather listen to them than the Police, but not as much as I’d like to listen to the Psychedelic Furs. It’s a fine line, but it’s there. Still, “Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space” rocks in a million different ways.
Now Spacemen 3, that’s an entirely different and much-more-heroiny beast. Only Fall Out Boy* comes close to topping them.
*j/j again
Sine.Qua.Non
I saw Sting and Annie Lennox this summer and it was incredible. Synchronicity is a great word and song…..wow, Rick Ocasik of the Cars…that album cover was pretty awesome as well..yes indeed, i remember it well, only I was in my twenties and having a bloody good time….man….thigh high spike heeled point toed boots and miniskirts….yeah.i had a lot of fun…
1983’s memory lane of music – it was a very good year:
Peter Gabriel’s Solsbury Hill & Shock the Monkey
The Eurymthics Sweet Dreams…(are made of this)
REMs Free Radio Europe
The Pretenders Back on the Chain Gang
I love Todd Rundgren – Bang the Drum All Day
Bowies Modern Love & Lets Dance
Violent Femmes Blister in the Sun
Princes Little Red Corvette & 1999
The Romantics Talking in Your Sleep
Joe Jacksons Breaking Us in Two
The Kinks Come Dancing
Americas Right Before Your Eyes
The Police’ Every Breath You Take & King of Pain
Talking Heads Burning Down the House
U2s Sunday Bloody Sunday
Billy Idols White Wedding
ZZ Tops Gimme all your lovin & Sharp Dressed Man
Psychedelic Furs Love My Way
Mexican Radios Wall of Voodoo
Toto’s Africa
1 of my top 10 all time favorites:
Robert Plants……….In the Mood! (like turning a switch onto instant sexmode)
thanks John…that was fun
Sine.Qua.Non
Cyndi Lauper, Blondie, Talking Heads, and Elvis Costello.
All excellent choices – especially Lauper
RSA
Someone mixing up Robert Palmer with the Cars, perhaps? That’s not a crazy conjunction, I guess.
But I assume everyone’s familiar with mondegreens? Here’s a sample entry from kissthisguy.com:
rilkefan
Hmm, never thought about that alabaster thing – maybe he’s talking about the myth of Pygmalion and Galatea.
aaronpacy
Syncronicity???? Here’s syncronicity! I remember an X-mas where I got a walkman and Police Syncronicity from my parents. My perents friends came over and brought me gifts as well…..can you guess what they brought me? That’s right….a walkman and Police Syncronicity! I didn’t know it then…but it was my introduction into the idea of syncronicity and coincidence. I sold the extra walkman gave the tape to a friend.
Krista
That’s the joy (and pain) of boxed wine – no built-in portion control like there is with bottles. We recently put on a nice Cabernet Sauvignon, and it should be drinkable by Christmas.
King of Pain is definitely an awesome song — I was still quite young when it came out, but my older sister was 14, and I remember her having her friends over, and them dancing around to it.
Ned Raggett
Did I just see a Spacemen 3 mention on here? What a fine comments section. This reminds me everyone should go to Terrastock in April…
Sine.Qua.Non
Fitsy purchase with own $$$:
Iron Butterfly, Cat Stevens, and Blind Faith at the same time.
Sine.Qua.Non
That was First not Fitsy???
vinyl
JohnB
“Synchronicity” is my favourite Police album. It contains some of their most melodic, and to me, best songs. As other people have mentioned, it also contains Andy Summers’ “Mother”, a serious contender for the absolute worst song ever recorded, by anyone, anywhere.
Boardjones
Yeah, I agree with the above poster concerning the Cars getting back together without Benjamin Orr; all of my fav Cars songs had Orr as lead vocal. Even if Ric Ocasek agree’s to go along, it would seem strange without Orr.
Angry Engineer
The Cars were a band I missed the first time around, perhaps due to the fact that I was in grade school and found groups such as Ratt much more compelling. It wasn’t until sometime in college when my roommate picked up whatever best-of box set that was released at that time (and we also took note that Ric Ocasek was producing records for bands such as Bad Religion) that I was able to really appreciate the Cars.